Why Some People Are So Unhappy

July 9, 2009

Interview with Mardi Horowitz, M.D., author of A Course in Happiness   
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Mike Carruthers:
The world is full of people who are unhappy, and it turns out there are two things that tend to produce discontent for these people.

Mardi Horowitz, M.D.:
What I call the "toxic twins" that tend to produce discontent are blaming and entitlement. That is people who feel too entitled and then blame everybody else or something else for what happens bad to them.

Psychiatrist Dr. Mardi Horowitz, author of the book A Course in Happiness, says being unhappy and blaming everyone else for your problems does serve a purpose.

When you're in a kind of self-righteous zone you're feeling strong and in a way it really does serve a function - in a sense it feels better than feeling very depressed or apathetic.

But it doesn't make you happy - statistically speaking people around the world tend to rate themselves about a seven on a one to ten scale of happiness. And interestingly Denmark scores the highest of all countries.

The most amusing thing happened when a man in Denmark was asked on the radio, "Why do you think the Danes score happy?" And he said, "Our expectations are so low". And there's a lot of wisdom in that - I don't mean it's good to have low expectations but that happiness is often the degree to which a person feels their life is matching what their goals for it were. If it's a good match, the person tends to be pretty content.

To listen to the complete unedited interview, click here.